Correcting Europe's political economy: The virtuous eclecticism of Georg Ludwig Schmid

The article provides an analysis of Georg Ludwig Schmid's ‘Reflexions sur l’Agriculture’, which was published as the first essay in the first issue of the publications of the Oeconomical Society of Berne, founded in 1759. Schmid connected the agricultural improvement movement of the time to the logic of international power competition that caused the 7 Years’ War and wished to preserve political economy as agronomy for the cause of peace and virtuous economic progress. In his essay on commerce and luxury, he devised a patriotic political economy based on the notion of a marche naturelle, or a natural progress of opulence, which enabled statesmen and political economists to separate the productive from the pathological features of economic development, healthy and necessary growth from luxury. Adam Smith deployed a similar model in the Wealth of Nations but argued that Europe's retrograde development was so fundamental and comprehensive that it made it impossible to use this kind of natural progress model on its own as a meaningful guide for comprehensive economic and political reform.     

Republicanism and political economy in Pagnerre's Dictionnaire politique (1842)

In 1842, the Parisian editor Louis-Antoine Pagnerre published the Dictionnaire politique. This large volume was the manifesto of the French Republicans in opposition to the conservative governments of King Louis-Philippe under the July Monarchy. One of the most original aspects of the Dictionnaire resides in the attempt to link the doctrine of republicanism to political economy. It is the purpose of this paper to analyse the republican political economy presented in Pagnerre's dictionary. First, we detail the historical context in which it appeared, stressing on Pagnerre's biography and on the composition of the group of young republicans who wrote the main economic entries of the book. Second, we focus on the economic ideas about the political regulation of industrial phenomena and the solutions these Republicans imagined to solve the social question. Third, we conclude by attempting to summarize the main characteristics of this republican political economy and to appreciate its originality.     

J.G.A. Pocock and the idea of the ‘Cambridge School’ in the history of political thought

This article offers a reinterpretation of the origins and character of the so-called ‘Cambridge School’ in the history of political thought by reconstructing the intellectual background to J.G.A. Pocock's 1962 essay ‘The History of Political Thought: A Methodological Enquiry’, typically regarded as the first statement of a ‘Cambridge’ approach. I argue that neither linguistic philosophy nor the celebrated work of Peter Laslett exerted a major influence on Pocock's work between 1948 and 1962. Instead, I emphasise the importance of Pocock's interest in the history of historiography and of his doctoral supervisor, Herbert Butterfield. By placing Pocock's intellectual development in these contexts, I suggest, the autonomy of diverse versions of the ‘Cambridge’ approach can more readily be perceived.     

On Classic Maya political economies

Lowland Maya political economies are cosmopolitical economies, with “authoritative resources”—knowledge (“symbolic capital”), especially astro-calendrical knowledge, and ostensible control of time—evolving as the basis for Classic wealth, power, and dynastic legitimacy. Within a system of rotating geopolitical capitals, elite economic activities of production, consumption, and distribution were directed toward control of luxury goods and ritual performances emphasizing privileged interactions with the cosmos and ancestors. Examples include a “ritual mode of production” focused in a palace economy, consumption manifest in lavish public rituals and feasting, and goods circulating through tribute and periodic markets. In the dispersed lowland Maya settlement system, this decentralized economy retained some features more characteristic of stateless societies.     

Feasting landscapes and political economy at the Early Horizon center of Huambacho, Nepeña Valley, Peru

The present contribution examines feasting practices at Huambacho (800–200 cal. B.C.), an Early Horizon elite center of the Nepeña Valley, Department of Ancash, Peru. Feasts are approached as long-term strategies essential to the political economy of human societies. Drawing upon data from public architecture, material culture and food remains, the study closely considers feasts as political actions and investigates the organization and social meaning of these special events. At Huambacho, I contend that the diacritical aspects of feasting practices, such as the use of exclusive spaces and special paraphernalia, contributed to the dual celebration of communal identity and prosperity, and the creation and reproduction of social inequalities. The research highlights the dual centripetal and centrifugal dynamics of Early Horizon feasts and demonstrates the role of the Huambacho center in advertising the success of the local community based on new forms of production and innovative rules of commensal hospitality.     

Governing relations between people and things: Citizenship, territory, and the political economy of petroleum in Ecuador

Ecuador is the fifth largest producer of petroleum in Latin America. Petroleum has brought prosperity to many Ecuadorians, effectively becoming the nation's most important natural resource. It also has inspired intense political mobilizations. While the best known of these are led by Amazonian indigenous peoples, petroleum has also generated other important but not as well-recognized mobilizations. This paper focuses on the political mobilization of Amazonian agricultural settlers and petroleum workers in relation to petroleum. While these actors do not share common livelihood or cultural struggles, the discourses that frame their mobilizations in relation to petroleum have common elements. Their dissatisfaction with the political economy of petroleum in the 1990s and 2000s, for example, generated high profile protests and civil unrest that centered not on stopping production, but on demanding a more ‘responsible management’ of petroleum by the state. The paper brings together political economy, mechanisms of subject formation, and the material qualities of petroleum to explore how petroleum production in Ecuador has shaped common views on citizenship among these actors that center on petroleum as a site of regulation of social life.     

The evolution of international political economy

The 'invisible college' of international political economy (IPE) is a house divided. The field is split between the rationalist species that dominates in the US and a diverse genus of critical scholars. Recent developments in IPE suggest, however, that there is scope to rebuild the invisible college. An increasing awareness of normative questions should make rationalist scholars more receptive to critical work, while critical scholars are discovering an independent identity as they reinvent themselves in the tradition of classical political economy. There is much to gain from a renewed exchange between rationalist and critical scholars, particularly in the context of empirical work, as demonstrated by the vivid politics of the global bioeconomy.     

农业和文明起源

文明起源在考古学上是一个复杂的问题,牵涉到人类社会的许多方面。其中一个重要方面就是农业。本文试图强调农业对文明起源所起的推动作用,并提出一些有关农业考古的看法,希望对目前正在进行的中华文明探源工程和类似课题有所帮助。     

In pursuit of independence: the political economy of Catalonia's secessionist movement

This article examines the fiscal dimensions of recent support for Catalan secession. Since the region is a cultural community distinct from the rest of Spain, much research has spotlighted national identity features in the calculus of Catalan political aspirations. This study supplements this work by contextualising support for Catalan independence in terms of the state's fiscal arrangements with the use of public opinion survey data. Even after controlling for self‐reported cultural identity and other relevant factors, it argues that support for independence is a function of grievances rooted in the desire for Catalonia to assume responsibility for taxation and spending policy. Meanwhile, it validates some observations about Catalonia's separatist movement, while bringing others into question, and offers support for the theoretical framework linking political economy to secessionism. The results suggest that Spain might be able to stave off Catalonia's separatist bid through some form of political and taxation policy reconfiguration, with the caveats that cultural identity factors and the existence of other separatist movements across the country complicate this strategy.     

“Living together separately”: Thoughts on the relationship between political science and political geography

In their provocatively titled book, Living Together Separately, Michael Romann and Alex Weingrod argue that the shared terrain of Jerusalem obscures deep divisions in the physical and social lives of its Arab and Jewish ethnic communities (Romann & Weingrod, 1991). Multiple divisions exist not only among peoples sharing a common space; they are also found among communities of scholars sharing common intellectual interests. This has certainly been the case of Political Science and Political Geography during much of the twentieth century. Members of both disciplinary communities seek insights into the role of politics and political structures in human society, yet until recently they have pursued their work within orbits that only rarely intersected. They attended different conferences and symposia, they employed different methodological tools, and they did not draw heavily on each others published work.Recent theoretical and empirical developments have begun to erode the barriers separating Political Science and Political Geography, and a discussion of the relationship between the disciplines is thus both timely and welcome. Professor Elazar is an appropriate person to place at the center of this discussion, for his work as a political scientist is unusual sensitivity to geography. Professor Elazar's comments about research orientations and career constraints provide an interesting point of departure for such a discussion, but to understand the nature and depth of the divide between the disciplines it is important to consider the core intellectual constructs and practices that have characterized Political Science and Political Geography during the twentieth century. These have fostered theoretical orientations and research approaches that are sufficiently different from one another to create significant barriers to interdisciplinary contact.     

Geography and political science

Political geography can make distinctive and important contributions to both geography and political science, but this will require attention to the boundaries of these disciplines, emphasis on the comparative advantage of geographers with respect to the study of the shapes of physical space, and systematic consideration of boundaries as problematically institutionalized norms. Mapping, per se, cannot be the core of any discipline.     

A fragile political sphere

The Italian political sphere is characterized by an endemic fragility whose origins can be traced back to the post-unification practice of trasformismo and the ensuing system originally summarized by Paolo Farneti as ‘monopolist coalition’. Here, through shifts in alliances and personal agreements, a powerful centre coalition permanently holds power and blocks the opposition from becoming a possible alternative government. The ruling class fails to function as a party and uses parliament and the government as organizational tools of its hegemony. As a consequence, the functioning of the democratic system is distorted and the role of the public sphere inhibited. From the Risorgimento, through fascism, to the First and Second Republics and Berlusconism, this article assesses the fragility of Italy's political sphere as a recurrent constant in the history of the nation and the result of ‘tare storiche’ that remain unhealed.     

The political culture of the Alleanza nazionale: an analysis of the party's programmatic documents (1995-2002)

The birth of the Alleanza nazionale and its rise to power in Berlusconi's 1994 and 2001 cabinets have attracted great interest. The evolution of the AN's political culture from 1995 to the present has received far less attention. The interest of scholars is dominated by concern over the number of fascist chromosomes inherited by the AN, and the way these influence its policy choices. The weight of history overlays the problems faced by the party in its attempt to establish an original identity. This article investigates the formation of the AN's political culture through an analysis of the official programmatic documents produced thus far by the party, putting each in the Italian political context at the time of its issue. The documents show that the AN is no longer a neofascist, extreme right or populist radical-right party, but its values and beliefs have not found a stable form.     

应给“民营经济”正名

该文指出,目前国内所称谓的“民营经济”或“民营企业”,其实质是指私有经济或私人企业。“民营”这一概念是我国由计划经济向市场经济转轨过程中特定阶段的产物,它模糊了产权关系,缺乏科学的内涵界定,并给一些人借机浑水摸鱼提供了可乘之机。因此,在现阶段,应给“民营经济”正名。     

Archaeological excavations at Bosutswe,Botswana: cultural chronology,paleo-ecology and economy

Excavations at the site of Bosutswe on the eastern edge of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana have uncovered over 4 m of deposit ranging in age from CE 700 to 1700. Our research has produced quantitative and qualitative measures of the material and ecological dimensions that structured the everyday actions and behaviors through which social identities were constituted, maintained, and transformed during the period when the polities of Toutswe, Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and Khami rose to power. By examining the material dimensions that underlay shifting relations of production, exchange, and social stratification we are able to contextualize the social judgments that ascribed value to material goods and food ways, while specifying the ways these were used to create and naturalize social relationships and power differentials. Stable isotope analyses, combined with evidence of vitrified dung, further enable us to suggest changes in herd management strategies used by the inhabitants of the site to compensate for ecological changes brought about by long-term occupation, while at the same time enabling them to economically tie subordinates to them as social divisions became more rigidly defined after CE 1300. The cultural and economic changes that took place at Bosutswe thus directly impact our understanding of the social transformations that immediately preceded contemporary configurations of ethnicity in Botswana.